Koch Carbon surreptitiously removed the Petcoke, most likely to Ohio, where the High-Sulfur heavily polluting toxic waste was probably burned for electricity.
Well, Our Corporate Lords and Masters are at it again. If you ever wondered what it was like to live in 19th century London with Industrial Factories dumping massive amounts of carbon on your heads come to the Southside of Chicago where massive piles of Petcoke are collecting along the Calumet River.
BP Whiting, which under George W(orst President Ever) dumped thousands of tons of toxic chemicals (including tons of mercury) into Lake Michigan in violation of the Republican neutered EPA regulations, now don't even have to worry about the Rump EPA, as the Right-Wing Government Shutdown has furloughed 99% of the EPA.
I suppose it makes sense. Conservatives have increasingly pushed America back to the 19th century. By, rolling back Voting Rights for minorities, making Birth Control illegal for women, involving the US in various little conflicts, many in the same regions Victoria and her PM's sent troops, and a retarded economic system which rewards the Inheritors of Wealth, Rentiers and Robber Barons.
So, why shouldn't we get to experience the joys of 19th century Industrial expansion as well?
BP Whiting is producing 6000 tons of Petcoke a day.Detroit’s Marathon refinery wasn’t producing petcoke before its expansion, according to the report, but now produces 1,720 tons per day while the Phillips 66 refinery in Wood River, Illinois, is increasing its petcoke output from 1,300 to 5,700 tons per day.
The waste product is laced with sulfur, mercury, nickel, vanadium and selenium and various other toxic residue but why should that matter to the Koch Brothers or BP? It's not in their backyard. They don't have the clouds of choking carbon befouling their lungs. The petcoke isn't sitting next to river they live upon.
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| Tom Shepard, a neighborhood activist, worries about piles of petcoke building up along the Calumet River in Chicago. (Photo by Kari Lydersen / Midwest Energy News) |
But, who needs a Government? Who needs an EPA? Who needs Job Killing Regulations?
6 comments:
This is the problem isn't it? Who pays for pollution? Certainly the merchandisers don't want to pay for the piles of advertising disguised as packaging, that's the citizens cost, land fills is the publics expense if they don't like it then let it blow around the neighborhood. Fly ash, tar sands residue, airborne particles, those that breath them in bare the cost and the illnesses with their costs, not the utility or refinery or kiln or factory that used/produced it. At the moment much of commerce has the ability by law and the clear intent to cut their operating costs by dumping everything on the public, from trash to early death.
Koch Industries sales are $150 billion a year.
Correction $115 billion.
yellow fringe,
Spot on observations. The public covers much of the cost of low wages and zero benefits but , the Koch Brothers won't be honest about that because they are steadily destroying the progressive gains of the 20th century.
The problem is current generations grew up with EPA regulations, Clean Air & Water acts, and Union protections.
They thought the Fight was Won. The Koch Brothers and other Plutocrats did not agree.
And thus they have ushered in the Ultra-Reactionary Agenda, dolled up as Populism, to turn the Working and Middle Classes upon the Government and themselves.
I have to do some geography here but doesn't the Chigago river empty into the Illinois or Kankakee and that joins a river down south that eventually meets with the Wabash, then the Ohio and Mississippi?
Ron
Sarge, the quick answer is that the Chicago river empties into the Gulf of Mexico. The Chicago river ends into the Des Plaines River, which combines with the Kankakee River, which ends at the Mississippi, which ends at the Gulf of Mexico.
However, the Calumet River is separate from the Chicago river. Calumet starts in northwest Indiana and ends in Lake Michigan. However, the Chicago River starts at Lake Michigan. So you could argue one and the same.
Gene,
I am at www.oneangryzebra.tumblr.com
Sarge
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